Finding Remedy
by apaulu2
Summary: Michael and Sara need to find a cure for what ails them. -- On hold indefinitely...
1. Angels and Demons

A/N -- This is my first ever published FF. I have a fragile ego, but I beg you for constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy.

**_ATTENTION: This story has been revamped, re-edited, and reorganized. Anyone who began reading prior to 2/16/07 should got back and re-acquaint themselves. Some is slightly different, some exactly the same, and some completely new.

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A chill permeates the thin flesh of his forearms as he leans through the bars, resting them on the flat surface of the cross rail. Roughened and pitted by decades-worth of inmates standing exactly in his position, the iron that had felt so foreign to him thirty days ago, now registers familiar. The fleeting relief of the cage's protection from the other felons morphs suddenly into a panicked realization that somewhere in his grey matter, this place has changed him. He willingly surrendered his individuality when his guns discharged, but he never anticipated having any difficulty in regaining it. The possibility that Fox River is altering his thought patterns, his very perceptions of the world and what things in it are good or bad, hadn't been part of his calculations. Now as equal to his desire to save his brother's life by means of escape is his desire to save his own.

Michael scans the dim cellblock, cataloging every small whimper or moan that quietly reverberates in the night, bouncing off cinderblocks and concrete and into his ears where it silently resonates for what seems an eternity. His intestines squirm with understanding of the sadness and torture eliciting the sounds, dread and doubt worming into his throat. Pivoting toward the stacked cots and Sucre's sleeping form, his eyes dart futilely around the cube to which his consciousness is becoming frighteningly accustomed. In fear, he questions if he could ever escape the creature this prison and its inhabitants has forced him to become.

Metallic clinks move toward him through the dark, the guard's keys echoing the ever-present helplessness that could not be squelched no matter how hard his intellect works to provide some pretense of control. As the rattles approach, he lays down on the springs to once more feign sleep, his mind moving ceaselessly into the abyss of his thoughts.

-----

The sun, high and bright, generates illusionary warmth against the chilly spring breeze. The sidewalk cracks beneath his boots abruptly bring about a grin as he trudges through the late-morning sogginess. _Step on a crack…_ the giggles and smiles of a long-passed moment of glee with his mother and brother. The buoyancy of the memory exchanges for an ethereal tranquility as he steps onto the linoleum tiles in her domain – he feels different here, her simple existence changing the atmosphere. Memories of his nocturnal panic fade, seemingly belonging to another. The white rooms, so clinically bland and unremarkable for everyone else, are filled with a mixture of calm and security only palpable to him. His organs relax, the tension uncoiling from every cell in his body. She had been strategically chosen as his way out of the prison's walls, and she has unexpectedly become the way out of his mind's new barriers every day; she possesses his salvation without even knowing it.

His uniformed captor leads the way toward the now-familiar glassed exam room, escorting him in, and standing stoically as Michael sits in the cracked vinyl and wooden chair. The pair waits in the awkward silence that always accompanies a prisoner-guard pairing. Larger numbers of either creates a comfort of facelessness on both sides, he observes inwardly, but when one on one, each are forced to regard the other as more than numbers or uniforms; they are men to one another for brief moments.

Sara walks in. Her eyes meet his for an instant, but, as always, flit away just as the spark attempts to arc across the connection. He had discovered her altruism, her charity, as he chronicled her life, her history lining his walls and keeping him company in the dark. He should have known; the intrigue inspired by research foreshadowed curiosity that would flare into more. Her ability to see past prisoners' rap sheets, her hope to help them as individuals had placed her squarely in his line of fire as he planned for Lincoln's survival; but he realized within days of his arrival that the vulnerability he hoped to exploit for his brothers' benefit could be his own undoing if he allowed himself to fall ever further into her smile, her eyes. He was almost glad of her desire to break contact with him when she discovered Nika, but he also couldn't deny the part of him that wanted to be honest with her, nearly fracturing his psyche trying to walk the line of half-truths. If he can make most of the lies by omission, she might forgive him, he rationalizes daily.

"Morning," his quiet voice filters through a crooked smile.

The corners of her lips turn up and he wants to reach toward her and trace them. Her eyes follow the guard's retreat to the hall, returning briefly to his and flickering away once more.

"Good morning, Michael. Feeling okay?"

"Sure." His mouth closes slowly over the round syllable.

Routine takes over and his ears hear and his body feels everything before it happens; the snap of the lancet piercing his finger tip, the smooth latex against his arm – he fleetingly wishes away the rubber's invention – the dig of the thin insulin needle under his skin. But all of it stems from her, and from her there comes no pain. Metal wheels scrape the floor, her pen scratches paper, she stands, and they're done. He blinks, looks up, her chestnut waves seeming to glow from the fluorescent back-lighting. His throat tightens from wanting her – wanting her to know him, to see him, to want him, and wanting her to be within reach. Angels and demons; he had unwittingly stained a prison parable on his skin when he'd endeavored for a literal representation of its walls, and day by day he becomes more demonic, the prison devouring him, towing her further from his grasp. Within her domain, though, it drops away, and he still hopes.


	2. Senses

A/N -- This is my first ever published FF. I have a fragile ego, but I beg you for constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy.

_**ATTENTION: This story has been revamped, re-edited, and reorganized. Anyone who began reading prior to 2/16/07 should got back and re-acquaint themselves. Some is slightly different, some exactly the same, and some completely new.

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**_

The plush down gives way easily as her pale legs move to curl around the comforter, forsaking the warmth beneath for the refreshing coolness that skims across her calves in the night. Tangles form incessantly as Sara's head turns this way and that, never finding a position of perfect comfort, a condition she adamantly refuses to blame on her thoughts. She will not admit that it is Michael that keeps her mind swirling, will not relinquish the control of her REM cycles to a man she is so clearly unclear about. Who is he? Why does he look at her that way? Why does she like it? Who _is_ he? Too many unknowns are in the equation for her to formulate a solution. But he stays there, in her ears, and in her eyes, and in her fingers, as if he had some mystical ability to slip his spirit into her drink where she could not help but ingest and absorb him; until it's unclear what sights, sounds, and actions are his or her own. Wind rattles the shutters against brick just beyond her windows and as she slips her feet back into the warmth of the blanket, she wonders if he hears it too.

-----

Viewing Michael's slanted and splintered image through the thick-thinning panes of safety glass, Sara's belly tics, as always, at his presence. And, as always, she slowly blinks and admonishes herself.

Grasping the knob and turning, she braves a glance toward him and feels a stronger spasm engulf her abdomen. Certain a blush creeps tellingly toward her cheeks, she draws her eyes away, battling for composure.

"Morning." His voice breaks through, trying to pull her back, but her focus on the uniform stepping away from them is all that keeps her sane in that millisecond. Still, her lips curl unbidden, and her eyes seek his of their own accord.

Random and banal conversation babbles from her lips as she schools her senses and sets to work with blood and needles. Penetrating the latex, the velvet of his skin forces tingles against her fingertips, and a curiosity of all of his skin's smoothness percolates through her mind's barrier of routine, nearly bubbling to the surface of her consciousness before she pushes herself away from him. Distance saves her as she plucks a pen from her pocket and inhales deeply before trying to comprehend why she needed it, then remembers herself. A final inward sigh escapes her lungs as she leaves her chair and pivots to look down on him.

He blinks at her as he surfaces from wherever his mind had traveled and she sees some mysterious factor dart across his irises and wants desperately and instantaneously to decipher its meaning. But, as always, her question goes unanswered as he shuffles from the room once more, leaving Sara to renew the cycle of waiting for their next encounter. Her next chance to unfold the pages of Michael's closed book self.


	3. Prayer and Predation

A/N -- This is my first ever published FF. I have a fragile ego, but I beg you for constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy.

**_ATTENTION: This story has been revamped, re-edited, and reorganized. Anyone who began reading prior to 2/16/07 should got back and re-acquaint themselves. Some is slightly different, some exactly the same, and some completely new.

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_**

Given three years of getting used to it, darkness shouldn't bother Lincoln like it does. He doesn't want to think about why now more than ever. He doesn't want to remember the images that burn themselves nightly into his brain, his eyeballs, and what should be there instead.

He was in prison for three years, and more than a decade, on the whole, before that, and while he'd sat behind those bars, he watched his life crumble. He felt it there, though, one last scrap of a foundation he could, would, rebuild on – Veronica. Until a gunshot bounced back into his ear across the static of a fucking cell phone connection. And now she wasn't there to make the dark okay again; she was supposed to make the nights outside of Fox River different from the one's he'd known for all those years. She was supposed to make them good and peaceful and full of sex and sweetness and dreams. Now he needs something to help him lose the nightmares of being inside.

Sometimes the prison's cement walls are collapsing around him, piling dirt and gravel onto his chest, grime filling his mouth, his lungs. And sometimes Veronica is beneath him, her own walls pulsing and tightening around him. Either way, he wakes with a strangled holler for release, sweat cooling on his skin, and prayer rising into his throat for it to be real one of these times, because one way or another his misery would finally end. She's gone, and he needs to forget everything – for a little while, at least – so he betrays her memory for a small glimpse of serenity in the moment. He never had been one for planning ahead, but even he knew he would regret it when he walked into that first roadside bar. He knew the only afterglow he'd get was guilt, but the prompt and total resignation to instant gratification was the basic flaw in every addict.

Now it's a science of knowing his prey, and an art of seducing them as quickly and simply as possible. His predatory senses turn his stomach when he thinks too long about why he picks the not-quite-pretty or not-quite-chunky ones and flashes a winning smile, sidling up with a hint of shyness, and a tingle of gentility. His personal record was in and out in five minutes – the door, that is. He uses them all night…because they always end up looking like her.


	4. Tying Knots

A/N -- This is my first ever published FF. I have a fragile ego, but I beg you for constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy.

**_ATTENTION: This story has been revamped, re-edited, and reorganized. Anyone who began reading prior to 2/16/07 should got back and re-acquaint themselves. Some is slightly different, some exactly the same, and some completely new.

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Quaint is the word Lincoln uses every time they pull into a cheap motel off one of the rural highways Michael had mapped out for their journey through the desert toward the money that can secure the future. Sure, creaky doors are quaint, scratchy sheets and stained comforters, leaky faucets and browned toilet bowls, all quaint. But the quaintest thing Michael discovers…the tissue thin walls between the adjoining rooms.

They don't have a lot of spending money yet, not until they get their hands on the Utah stash, as he tried to explain to Lincoln the first time his brother requested a separate room. Lincoln had simply offered him a sidelong asking glance tinged with something…anger, hostility, sadness?...that only left Michael to say, "Yeah, sure."

Lincoln always locates the room first then, without even unlocking the door to inspect the quarters, begins striding purposefully down the dark stretch of road to some dingy roadhouse – or dark diner, or even once a gas station – they had passed a couple of hundred yards ago.

Shoes off, head against the wall, and back buffered from the hard wood of the headboard by the thin motel pillows, Michael enjoys the outward silence of the solitude, despite the noise in his own brain pulling him to see all of the intricate patterns, to understand every mechanical working within the room surrounding him. It has been there for decades and no longer forces his attention; it's just white noise now. He has harnessed the ability, calling on it at his own convenience and pushing it to a distance when unneeded – that control got them here, had gotten them out. His mind rifles through the stores of details, all neatly sorted and funneled into their own individual categories for future referencing purposes, bringing his plans for the next few days to the surface of his consciousness. Closing his eyes he follows the lines of the strategy in his mind as if physical threads connect everything, webbed in such a way that any more than just a few misplaced knots could weaken its fortitude to the point of breaking. So many already clutter the map's surface that he fears just one more will be the undoing of it all. LJ's arrest – 1; Westmoreland's death – 2; T-Bag – 3… Every once in a while he picks at the fourth, and like a scab not quite ready to relinquish its hold on healing skin, a torrent surges from beneath – her scent, the smoothness of her skin, her lips, the silk strands of her hair sliding between his calloused fingers…

And a slamming door suddenly destroys his meditations…

Giggles and growls, sighs and screams filter through the wall; Michael by now knows the ritual. The next three hours will be littered by these noises.

He secretly hopes Lincoln has discovered an antidote to misery…co-opting a successful recipe flits through his brain after more than a few long showers and lonely nights with images of Sara behind his eyes, the feel of her, the soft skin he has known and the tight wetness he imagines, filling his senses as he moves hurriedly, guilt rushing his climax, shame quickly replacing any pleasure as he bites his own hand or twists his mouth to the pillow. His pleasure and pain are his own. Unlike Lincoln, he wants to experience them alone and unknown.

-----

Loading and climbing into the car in the bright morning sun, neither brother speaks.

With a half-glance thirty minutes later, Michael finds Lincoln pensive, staring a hole through the passenger-side glass, hand to his chin, brow furrowed. Finally he asks,

"Does it help, Linc?"

Silence.

Lincoln inhales deeply.

"No," he says.


	5. That is the Question

_**A/N:** This is my first ever published FF, after toying with some for X-Files, General Hospital, and Battlestar Galactica. I have a fragile ego, but I beg you for constructive criticism. Too sappy? Too formal? Should I just put the poor story out of its misery? Please let me know. Story is ultimately M, but that will come later. Hope you enjoy._

_**Disclaimer:** They don't belong to me, I just like to pretend._

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She'd been forced to cut herself off from the world to stay sane. Newspapers, television, magazines, idle coffee shop chatter, all of it, at one point or another came around to Fox River – sooner rather than later if the patrons surrounding her recognized her face. Thus she had not crossed her own threshold in the last ten days; she'd forgone showers for the last four. There was clean and then there was clean. Despite her physical stench, her awareness of it and her own fucked-up emotional state was a testament to her true sobriety. She might not be doing anything to fix her problems, but then again, she's not getting a fix to fix her problems. The stasis of denial was a resounding victory in all actuality.

The phone's shrill call echoed in the quiet apartment, and like the last dozen or dozen-dozen calls, she ignored it. She has learned the hard way that screening was the way to go when she'd picked up to several threats and even more reporters. The now white noise of the machine's click and mumble of her own voice passed through her as she sparingly spread smooth peanut butter and strawberry jam on a piece of amost-stale bread, folding it and downing the snack that had become her staple meal in three bites; it was all she had in the house, and was determined to make it last. Briefly, she wondered if she could get one of the ever-present secret service agents to run to the market for more bread when she ran out in the next few days, then decided she didn't really care, she could go a while on water alone. She sauntered to the phone and played the message. The familiar sultry-accented voice of an eastern European woman perked her ears, senses sharpening to catch each word. She focused tightly on the woman's words, wanting to ignore the fleeting constriction of her chest.

"Dr. Tancredi. I need to speak with you. It's very important. Please."

Silence filled the room as Nika hoped for her to pick up the receiver.

"515-753-8226. Please."

The line went dead and the machine clicked to a stop. And the world stopped.

Apprehension and anticipation weaving through her ribs, Sara stretched her palm for the phone, but seized to stone before she could make contact, a million-million thoughts streaming across neurons, fear burning her retinas, anger spewing acid through her esophagus and into the back of her throat. Her knuckles contracted instinctually, her wits reminding her of his betrayal. But his eyes penetrated her reason even in her memories, so with trembling fingers slowing her dialing, she allowed his infiltration once more.

A ring stops mid-way, and without hesitation she utters, "Where?"

Nika paused, caution holding back her words. The phones are bugged, he'd said before, she'd have security of her own and the FBI would be watching everyone. She had tried to channel his tactical gifts and hoped she'd found a way to help without harm.

"The restaurant…from the last time…do you remember?"

"Yes."

"Now."

"Yes."

Sara piled wet hair after a cursory shower and violently pulled on half-clean t-shirt, jeans. Throwing wide the hall closet, supplies flew toward an open bag with only some hitting their target. Her brain explored every possibility, forcing her hands to snatch any remedy that might fit. With each blink of her eyelids, flashes of ragged bullet holes and bone-deep gashes relentlessly oozing blood from his olive skin made her chest clinch anew. All she could wish for was the images in her mind to be far worse than the reality she would confront. And perhaps if she had any control in the moment, she would see her own stupidity, her weakness, and her raging fury with him, but her Id had high-jacked her soul and all she wanted was for him to live. Ripping open her apartment door, the knob bashed into dry-wall, clinging to the gash made in its own image. She bolted down the hall; the agents' shocked, almost fearful expressions did not register in her brain, but she did understand they would be close on her heels and the gears had been turning as she'd decontaminated herself, attempting to discover a method of abandoning the shadow men.

ooo------ooo

The heel of her sneakers struck the base of the wooden booth in quick-time as Sara watched the door. The acrid taste of blood stilled her foot as her tongue passed across the inside of her upper lip that she'd pulled between her teeth so repeatedly.

And then she was there.

Nika slid across from her. Hands placed on table, the exotic woman's nails clicked unconsciously as she spoke.

"There's a market, two blocks away. East. Kolya's. The back door is always unlocked. It's near the bathrooms. Then Rush Street. 750 North. Hurry."

And then she was gone.

Sara blinked. Nika had learned from being part of Michael's plan. Sara briefly wondered what edification she had received. Purpose-driven, she stood, her legs stronger for the plan laid before her, and walked out of the diner.

ooo------ooo

Though in reality barely audible, the sound of her knuckles rapping on the oak door before her seemed to echo through the entirety of the mid-century apartment building's empty hall, falling to the hardwood floor, ricocheting and curving back to her from the coved ceilings; her instinct to remain covert made her cringe at the noise. _I would never make it as a spy_, she reflected in a split second of reactionary flippancy, and darted her eyes once again to each end of the hall. The agents were lost to the city. She swallowed hard and tightened her grip on the shoulder strap of her bag, hoping the canvas might absorb a fraction of the sweat that had appeared on her palms.

The heavy door slowly swung ajar far enough for a face to appear; Nika's face etched with worry and, upon seeing the visitor, a hint of hopefulness. Without awaiting an invitation, Sara shifted through the door as it opened just enough. Sara's head was playing tug-of-war with itself as she tried to decide whether she wanted to scan the room for the injury victim she knew she would find somewhere on the premises. Knowing or not; she could not decide which might be the more torturous state of being, but in the pit of her stomach she knew she had resigned herself to the former or she would never have arrived at the threshold of the apartment at all.

Nika promptly side-stepped the doctor before her, hurrying into an adjoining room, Sara in hesitant pursuit. A bed layered with rumpled quilts and a duvet came into her sight line, and whether it was her doctor's head or her anxious heart, her eye immediately found the first sign of distress – smears of blood on disheveled sheets. Her eyes frantically studied the scene, and found the only sign of human presence to be the back of a buzzed head peeking above the mounds.

Nika crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. Her feet fidgeted, her head tilted, but her eyes never left the figure before them. Sara braced herself, pushing her chin forward, readjusting her grip on her bag, and strode reluctantly toward the opposite side of the room, and the face of her patient.


	6. No Easy Answers

_**A/N: **I want to thank everyone so much for their wonderful support. I'm sorry these chapters are so short and I'm sorry it's taken me a while to update, I hope you're sticking with me! I felt the need to put some more story right into the middle of what I'd already written, so I'll hopefully get to update the next couple of chapters sooner. As always, please validate me! I need a good ego-stroking to know that this, my FIRST fanfic, is decent. Thanks again!_

_**Disclaimer:** They don't belong to me, I just like to pretend.  
_

* * *

_yesterday_

Adrenaline shot through his veins like battery acid, burning his muscles one by one as it coursed across the fibers of his quads, around his kneecaps and into his calves. Biceps tensed and pumping for more speed, the pavement pounded into his soles, up to his hips and thighs, senses racing as his eyes sought the next turn toward escape. Loose pebbles fly from beneath his shoes as he skids short of the corner, hands seeking purchase on the bricks of the wall to aid his quick veer and shredding the pads of his fingers. _At least my prints won't be a problem for while_, his suddenly-present rationality reminded him briefly, trying to find its own tenuous grip in the cyclone of the foot chase. Winding his way through alleys, fitting between buildings so close they should be sharing a wall, he struggled to place himself on a mental map to determine the most efficient yet clandestine route to the rendezvous point, but couldn't quite conjure the framework. _Damn, how's he do it!_ Random as the path probably was, he kept moving toward what he hoped was the northeast. _The Lake…gotta find the Lake…_

None of it had worked. All of the plans, the preparation, the hopes they'd stimulated in his soul that they could be a family again, that LJ would be with them when they left the city…they were gone and all that surfaced to replace them was vomitous guilt. A mantra emerged, beating the inside of his skull in time with his feet…_ No more No more No more No more._ Knowledge that he was the source of it all – the pain, the betrayals, the deaths – crushed into his core with a violence beyond any he'd known behind the walls of Fox River, beyond any he'd known in his thoroughly violent life. His thoughts lost, body moving autonomous of its owner, he missed the fading of his pursuers' footfalls. Something within him must have felt a surety of safety as he slowed from sprint to run.

Glimpsing the waves of Lake Michigan in the distance to his right, he knew he was closer. Moving deliberately to keep the Lake in view between buildings, he hunted for familiarity among the street signs and slivers of buildings flashing by on the opposite side of the avenue. _Yes._ He'd made it…he was only a block away and felt relief flush through his bones, tailed quickly by shame. He was here, and LJ never would be. Necessity pushed away emotion and propelled him toward the crowded boulevard. Crossing en masse, the throng of lunch-going businessmen lent anonymity despite his disheveled state, and he once more felt the security of belonging in a mob; prison had taught him the truth of safety in numbers. The café was within reach now.

And then the sun glinted off the dark lenses, sneer appearing in slow-motion on the face hovering above the crisp black suit. The agent had found his prey, and it was paralyzed by shock of his appearance._ How…!_ A collision shot pain through his shoulder and flank, wrenching him back from the precipice of resigning to his losses, and his brother brutally snatched his forearm, physically commanding him to follow. Tapping once more into a previously unknown stockpile, his body main-lined the adrenaline and they fled into the facelessness of the city's hoards.

Twenty-five blocks gone and nausea claims them. Looking back into an empty street, no sign of the hunter, they hunch into their cramps. The pair finds one another's eyes and feel the guilt collide, hear the sizzle of fusing regret.

"I'm so sorry." Michael offers, his breathlessness disguising the sobs wanting to rise from a chest pulsing with sadness and exhaustion. "I should have done better, planned better, known better…"

Lincoln had no words. He couldn't console his brother with words he didn't have; couldn't give comfort to another when he had none for himself.

He knew Michael hadn't said the words in search of forgiveness, but also knew the complete lack of acknowledgement would engorge his grief until he felt it seeping from his ears, and in a dark recess of his soul, it pleased him.

Inhaling and exhaling more evenly, Lincoln straightens.

"Let's go. It's time to leave."

Michael calls to his back as Lincoln jogs away,

"Linc! I'm sorry…" His platitude fades as the silence engulfs him.

Sounds of chain links rattle as the fence is scaled, probably the simplest of impediments ever to cross their path, with an easy answer to which neither are accustomed. A crash of steel bouncing and echoing against the asphalt melds with the heavy thud of his body and wet suction of speared flesh.

Pain pierces his physicality, easily strumming harmony to his heart's and mind's agony. His dead loves out number the living. As his consciousness fades, he realizes he's not sure he wants to stick around for the only one he has left.


	7. Through the Looking Glass

_**A/N: **I'm sorry I dropped off the face of the Earth for a while…real-life got in the way. Not to mention that I find it much harder to write when I'm getting a weekly dose of the real thing. Not only because my addiction is being fed steadily, but because the characters are constantly changing, and I, dork that I am, consider that. Whether or not I make use of it is an entirely different matter. Again, thanks for your support and I hope you're still checking for updates after my extended hiatus._

_**Disclaimer:** They don't belong to me, I just like to pretend._

* * *

Bloody gauze littered the bed and the floor around Sara's knees. Her scalpel blade and suturing kit lay on the bedside table dulled from use. The snap of latex filled the silent space as the gloves were pulled from her fingers, turning inside-out. Nika sat in a corner armchair hands folded between her knees, a position she'd finally chosen after a bout of pacing, and indecision about staying at all. Sara had fully exposed the through-and-through thigh wound and begun excising necrotic tissue and evening out the jaggedly torn skin; whatever had skewered Lincoln hadn't been smooth, sharp, or clean, but it had missed the femoral artery, because if it hadn't, she would have no purpose here…he would already be dead.

Sighing with finality, she positioned a final bit of tape at the edge of the bandage, compressed it and rose from aside his bed. She stretched and rubbed at the taut tendons of her neck, wiggling her toes in her shoes and absently wondered when exactly they and the rest of her lower legs had fallen asleep.

"I'll stay for a while to make sure the bleeding is under control and the sutures are holding up. You probably need sleep. Go lay down."

As Nika slowly stood and turned to leave with her own sigh of relief and exhaustion, Sara returned to Lincoln's side, smoothed the bandage a final time, picked up the remnants of her procedures, and glanced around to be sure she'd left no evidence of her presence. Placing her bag atop the dresser opposite the foot of the bed, she removed the blade from the scalpel, placing it in the small portable sharps container along with the suturing needle, wrapped the bloody gauze and towel containing the debrided tissue in disposable surgical cloth and stuffed them into her dirty gloves. Placing the entire package into a Zip-Lock and dropping it into her bag, she felt the door close on her tension and relief rise up to her eyes. _It wasn't him_…she allowed herself to think for the first time since she'd seen Lincoln's face. She turned her head ever so slightly to the right and lifted her gaze to the ceiling, fighting the fleeting moisture in her eyes. As her sight descended the ceiling, the full, bright moon caught her attention through the patio doors and she watched it silently.

A memory darted into her head of watching a meteor shower with her father on the balcony of their house. She had forced him outside, away from his work, but he'd stood with her quietly for a few minutes. Despite everything he'd done or said in all of her years, those moments made her love him still. He was her father. A smile of memories and sadness tugged at the corners of her mouth and she inhaled deeply once more and drew her gaze lower still, to the lights of the city – and his dark silhouette. In an instant, the many deep breaths she had just used to calm herself were all gone and trying to recover them, futile.

ooo------ooo

The stillness of the June night seemed to stem directly from him as he personified 'statuesque' in both movement and form, his gaze flowing past the wall to the wide world of freedom from his corner on the small stone balcony. Right knee crossed on left, he wore khakis and a light tee, finally fitting the image his prison profile had conjured; her eyes followed his line as if he was the David and she a student of the masters. The bandage was gone; in the shadows, his bare foot melded with the stone beneath it, but she could see the smoothness of skin where threads of gauze had once been. As moments passed into minutes, she began to wonder if she should simply slip away, but could not force herself to do what she should. He was the Sun, and she a planet – no, he was a black hole, but she didn't care. She quietly opened one of the French doors and stood on the threshold, wondering if he'd heard her.

"You shouldn't be here," came her answer after minutes of silence. She smiled wryly into the darkness as his words nicked her heart.

"Christ… You're welcome. I'm done saving Lincoln's life, just sent Nika to bed, so thought I'd round out the night and see if you had any mortal wounds. But obviously all of your damage is just psychological."

She turned to retreat from his sharp tongue, paused.

"A 'thank you' wouldn't be entirely out of line," she shot over her shoulder, stepping back onto the carpet and roughly pulling the glass door shut behind her.

Michael inhaled short and sharp, flexing his jaw and pushing his chin forward as he felt the loneliness close around him again. Never meant to hurt her, but always did. He hadn't said he didn't want her here.

ooo------ooo

Torturous, swirling thoughts insulated his body from the chill of the late Chicago night as the hours passed. His cursed mind shoveling horrors through the carefully constructed barricades he had manufactured through the last two decades. He'd had blood on his hands from the moment he'd stepped into Fox River, but not even when he felt the liquid of Maytag's assault coat his fingers did he realize it was there. Not until he'd watched LJ's eyes darken with death, felt his fingers slacken and the boy's full weight press against his own body, did Michael understand that his soul was well and truly lost. He thought he would be able to overcome the despair of Lincoln's eyes as he was buckled into the Chair, push away the guilt of Veronica's murder, block out the part of himself that still longed for Sara. Moment by moment, he was ceding his own essence for his mission without contemplation of the coin's two sides. To not believe his own actions justified would leave his soul tortured, but anyone able to surmount such guilt and sadness with a sociopathic indifference was truly soulless. The line of moisture down each cheek betrayed in which category he would reside. Closing his eyes, an invocation rose from his subconscious – a silent supplication for forgiveness, that he might one day be worth having a part of his soul returned to him.

He finally rose and turned to re-enter the bedroom. There she sits, beside the bed of his brother who almost died in their pursuit to save his own life, his son's. The irony of all of this had lost its allure long ago.

Her imperfectly mounted pony-tail snaked below her ear and across her shoulder as she leaned dozing against the soft upholstery of the wing-backed chair, and he suddenly wanted to wake her with a kiss to the forehead. Perhaps he could absorb the sweetness through his lips, osmosis spreading her soul's goodness into him. But she sleeps safely on the other side of the looking glass, while down the rabbit-hole he has gone. He refused to pull her into his sinister world of the Jabberwocky, where nothing awaited her but a beheading.

Opening the door, he braved a step. He would wake her then force her away. He would have one last look into her eyes and push her out the door for good.


	8. A Higher Power

_**A/N: **It looks like I lost some of you in my absence, but I'm gonna keep on keepin' on 'til I just can't keep on no more. I'm eager to find out where all of this is leading myself. Maybe I shoulda' figured that out before I started? Thanks for reading! And please criticize, constructively or otherwise._

_**Disclaimer:** They don't belong to me, I just like to pretend._

* * *

The threads of plush thrust between his flexing and stretching toes in mirror of his palms as he stands at the end of the bed, eyes moving from her to him and back again. Lincoln's breaths were deep and even and Michael lets a small measure of relief flood his veins for less than a moment before he draws his own breath and struggles to put more distance between himself and Sara. Moving to the opposite side of the bed, he sits, the softness of the carpet under him sparking the randomness of the thought "didn't know I missed carpet when I was inside". Crossing his ankles, pulling his knees upwards, and folding his hands, he dips his forehead into the darkness between his forearms and whispers.

"Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee…" A shaken breath fills his lungs. "Blessed are thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…" A child… Lincoln will never see his child again. "Holy Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners…now…" Michael feels the liquid drop from his cheek, lost to the fabric below. "…and at the hour of our death."

His plea for mercy repeated silently several times and a wish for a Rosary so he might do it all properly floated between the words. But Michael knew following a rule of prayer could never be recompense for all the rules of man that he had willfully thrown to the wayside.

She had not shifted when his prayers woke her; she understood he needed to cleanse himself and didn't want to intrude on the intimacy of repentance.

"I'm going to kill him."

Her chin twitched and eyes widened in horror in a split second of wondering what this stranger was capable of. She wanted to be able to reassure herself, wanted her consciousness to know what things he would and could not do, but the roadblock of his lies stood in her way. She could not trust what she knew because she had never really known him at all.

"Whether it's putting him in front of a bus or at the bottom of an elevator shaft…" His whispers became harsh gravel in his mouth as he used the words as self-flagellation. "…into a sniper's sight or strapped into the electric chair…he'll die because of me."

Her lids slid to meet their counterparts.

"…You're not a curse, Michael…"

Lifting her lashes halfway, she met a glassy glare so full of hatred and anger she almost witnessed the self-loathing eating away the nerve endings behind his wide pupils. And in a split second, the windows closed as his eyes sank from her view once more.

"I pull them into my web," he uttered in a voice laced with a million-million hues of sadness.

"It's as if my caring…" A confused epiphany colors his tone. "…paints a target on their backs.

"Westmoreland, my father…LJ. Fuck… …LJ."

Sara could hear the saliva pooling on his tongue and bubbling at the corners of his mouth, his words becoming heavy, as if the tears he held back were seeking release from any possible orifice. She curled her body towards him yearning to give comfort, instead hugging her stomach and curving her fingers at her nose and mouth. He needed this moment, coveted this flash of misery. It scared her; his craving, her comprehension.

Michael heaved a deep, racked breath; she watched the muscles of his scalp and temple contort and she knew the face of pain and fear he was hiding from her. A lone sob echoed in the room, nearly a cough, until once again supplanted by silence.

His long fingers unwound from one another, the tips finding his brow as his palms pressed against his orbits and swiped the wetness from his cheeks, until the pair finished the circuit exactly where they had begun.

"And Lincoln…" He shook his head slowly, brow crumpling in confusion at the Universe's cruelty.

She felt her throat raw with empathy, constricted with the restriction of her own emotion.

"He's not dead, Michael."

The invasion of her speech startled them both, their eyes suddenly fixing on the others'.

"And you…" He said quietly, the whites of his eyes glistening with fresh tears while the old dried against his bunched black lashes.

"I'm not dead, either." She whispered.

"I put you in those rooms…in that infirmary, in that hospital. And I will again."

In that instant, Sara wasn't in the room. He was speaking to himself, to God, to the evil he felt within himself.

"Michael," she thrust her voice at him with force if not volume, but paused, attempting to compose the phrases that churned through her skull.

"It's free will…

"You talk about the targets and the deaths and the pain that follow you, but you make plans and you make decisions…" Her eyes unfocus as she seeks clarity of meaning.

"You can't have it both ways. Either things are fated to fall as they have in which case you have no control over anything…none of this. Or you control these plans, these decisions…and if you have the power to choose for yourself, _so does everyone else_."

The pores of his skin seemed to contract in opposition to the mere concept of a challenge to his culpability. _What kind of man needs such a volume of shame to survive, and what kind of man would be left in the wake of ever relinquishing it?_, she wondered.

"_I_ put myself in those rooms, Michael. Lincoln put himself in that garage…and you put yourself in prison. Don't be so arrogant. You're _not…that…powerful_."

Sara could see the words pour over his joints as they sought some means of entrance to his body and watched as they found traction in some hidden recess. Michael's breath released from his lungs and he shrank inward as his knees lowered, arms following, hands unclenching. He strained to lift the weight of his head as he finally leveled his eyes to hers once more, eyes that held a foreign element – a glint of hope that he might be forgiven, that his life might one day hold more than remorse and pain – and the joy the blasted through her in that moment pushed the previously stifled moisture from her eyes at last.


End file.
